Have Apple Miced an Opportunity?

In today’s Apple update, there’s one element for me that’s far more exciting than the others and yet at the same time, really disappointing.  The new Magic Mouse.

Sure, iMac users can now woosh around and no longer have to live in jealousy of their MacBook brothers and let’s not understate how nice that will be for them.  But if you’re going to play around with the core interface elements, why stop there?

Games on the iPhone and iPod touch are currently proving themselves to be a serious winner.  For the first time in Apple’s history, they’ve seen how much people like to play and how well that blends with their brand.

So why not chuck in a component that you’re presumably already getting cheap due to massive orders for the iPhone and open a new avenue of revenue?

Get a half decent accelerometer in there and you’re in Wii territory but with hardware more powerful than Nintendo’s current Gamecube-a-like setup. With Apple TV along for the ride, users even have the best device to serve content to their HDTV!  Or, preferably for Jobs and Co, a massive Apple monitor.

Furthermore, this would make the device something that current laptop users would be keen to get hold of (punpologies) to expand the functionality of their machine.  Bearing in mind how a significant proportion of Apple users fit into the mobile brigade, this could be really lucrative.

Perhaps for now, Apple can cavort on their laurels, safe in the knowledge that they don’t have to try too hard to compete. But if they don’t have one eye on the enormous opportunity here then perhaps their stubborn and singleminded approach is blinding them to further bags of cash they could be raking in.

Further reading…  How iTunes could add to the argument.